Smart investors need to be prepared for any possibility, and the Meta founder getting dropped on his head in MMA is one of them.
Mark Zuckerberg is serious about mixed martial arts. So serious, in fact, that Meta investors have been warned the Facebook founder could possibly die or be incapacitated by the sport.
We’ve watched with growing interest as Zuck has gone from a flailing white belt in BJJ to a shredded blue belt tapping the competition (occasionally) in jiu-jitsu tournaments. He earned himself even more street cred when he did the most MMA thing ever, blowing out his ACL in sparring. That was in November of 2023 and probably prompted the legal team at Meta to upgrade his training from ‘hobby’ to ‘risk factor.’
The latest 10-K filing for the massive tech company stated “The loss of one or more of our key personnel, or our failure to attract and retain other highly qualified personnel in the future, could harm our business.”
“We currently depend on the continued services and performance of our key personnel, including Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg and certain other members of management participate in various high-risk activities such as combat sports, extreme sports, and recreational aviation, which carry the risk of serious injury and death.”
It concluded “If Mr. Zuckerberg were to become unavailable for any reason, there could be a material adverse impact on our operations.”
Mixed martial arts is certainly no joke. We were reminded of that recently after Irish MMA fighter Ryan Curtis suffered a broken back, broken neck, and a dislocated spine in training. In Canada, a young man named Lei Zhenhuan suffered a traumatic brain bleed competing in an amateur kickboxing tournament. So you never really know when s— is gonna get very real.
Zuckerberg joked about the note in the 10-K on his X (formerly Twitter) clone Threads, writing “High risk = high reward.”
For now, the tech bro is stuck recovering from knee surgery and can’t use the custom full-sized octagon he had built in his backyard. But Mark has made it clear that he’s interested in testing his skills eventually. A big money superfight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk was teased through 2023 before eventually falling apart.
“If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me,” Zuckerberg stated at the time. “Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously.”
“Zuck is a chicken,” Musk replied.
At least Facebook investors won’t have to worry about Zuckerberg suffering any serious burns if he does end up fighting the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.